Why Do I Taste Blood?
by DefyingPhysix
Summary: Mandark takes things too far.


_I do not own Dexter's Laboratory, and they were right in not trusting me with it…_

**Why Do I Taste Blood?**

Wreckage of work, tireless efforts and failures, littered the landscape. He had no need for them, now- at last he had succeeded, at last he would win. His had proved the better genius, and the nights he had stayed up, slaving away at his own obsession to built his MechaSuit bigger, stronger, faster- his efforts would finally end the boasting egotism of his long-time adversary…

"Kiss it goodbye, Dexter!" Mandark laughed into his microphone, and he was certain that his actions of swapping the stabilizers to the back array- the 'heels' of his MechaSuit, he supposed- could be heard, in the cockpit of the large, teetering MechaSuit of his enemy, sparks and crushed metal raining from the robotic joints of the failed contraption. A wide grin spread across Mandark's face as he leaned forward in his pilot's chair, flicking aside some switched on his console.

"Mandark!" Dexter's hazy transmission was fading in and out, as his suit lost power, "We have to stop- I can't-"

"Can't what? Can't face absolute _failure_, Dexter?" Mandark laughed again, "Well you'd better get used to the taste of it, because it's been a long time coming!"

"-My fuel stabilizers are loosing power, I have to eject-"

"Not until you feel every ounce of the pain you've caused me!" Mandark watched Dexter's MechaSuit beginning to fall apart, outside his shaded windshield, "Feel what it's like to come in second place!"

"Mandark, I'm not messing around! I have got fires starting in the forward hull, and my mainframe is fritzing! Please stop!"

"Admit that I'm better than you! Admit it, or I'll tear your little tinker toy to pieces!"

"Mandark!"

"Too late!" Mandark cried cruelly, hauling back the joystick control, "I was always the better scientist, you were just too stupid to realize it! Taste T7000 fist, imbecile!" and he released the hydraulic pressure valves, steam shooting from the rams of his mechanical arm as it plunged into the chest piece of Dexter's MechaSuit. Fingers gripped the mainframe wiring within, and Mandark hauled his arm back again, tearing out the artificial heart, "Suck failure!"

The MechaSuit, spitting fire and sparks, groaned on melted joints as it began to collapse forward into itself, contorting on uncontrolled limbs as it reeled, at last falling with a crash in the wreckage of Mandark's own failure.

"_Mandark!"_

Silence followed the fall, and Mandark was breathing heavily as he looked over the ruined heap of Dexter's machine. Exhilaration still burned in his chest, even as the massive fingers of his own robotic steed still clutched Dexter's mainframe. He had destroyed his precious MechaSuit, no doubt humbling him- this was victory, pure and absolute.

"What do you say to _that_, Dexter?" Mandark questioned snidely, after the dust had settled, "Eh? Get up from that one!"

Mandark waited, fully expecting a fiery retort, perhaps even a surprise attack from some facet of the machine that he had not yet destroyed. But even as he listened, the white noise of his headset faint, now and again, a strange, quiet whine would sound, from the other cockpit. Mandark frowned with confusion, "What's this?" and his smirk grew further, "Are you… _crying_, Dexter?"

There was no response, only Dexter's soft keening. Smoke was emerging from the 'head' of the collapsed robot.

"Oh, tell me you're crying," Mandark said, sitting up in his seat to see if he could get a better survey, of his work, "I might even come down there to see this; the great Dexter, boy genius… and I made him cry!" Mandark jammed leavers and flipped switches, the slight feeling of weightlessness making his feet tingle as he was lowered to the ground swiftly, and the shell of his cockpit hissed with escaping pressure as it cracked over, then retracted itself away. Mandark snapped out of his five-point harness, climbing to the ground. In only a few short minutes he had scaled his was to Dexter's control pod, and he was chuckling to himself as he scooped up a piece of rebar, smashing in the already shattered windshield, "Dexter?" he questioned snidely, "I want to see the defeat on your face!" Blood stained the inside of the cockpit, and Mandark paused, his smile fading, as he climbed further inside the inverted space, "Dexter…?" His hand touched something cool and slick, and he retracted with a gasp.

The wheezing sobs had, indeed, been Dexter. His face was tight with pain and blanched with weakness, as he swallowed back the blood in his lungs. Guttural coughing suddenly erupted from him, blood mixing with the tears on his lips, and he gritted his teeth as the long fingers of steel shrapnel shifted in his chest, cutting one of the straps of his harness.

Mandark touched his hand again, a cold sweat starting on his brow, "Dexter?!"

Dexter opened his large, panicked eyes, bright blue with glistening tears, his shattered glasses broken at the bridge and falling away from his face. "Mand-" he could not finish, coughing emerging from his throat again.

"No- Dexter, don't say anything, I'm going to get you out of here- e-everything'll be alright…" Mandark scrambled for balance as he stood, taking a hold of one of the long, jagged steel blades and trying to haul it back, out of his body. Dexter suddenly let out a cry, and Mandark slipped, the sharp metal slitting open his palm. He cursed sharply, nursing his wound as his eyes roamed the tiny room for anything to aide his cause, "Dexter, I'm going to go and get the nitrogen tanks from the T7000- I can use it to freeze the steel, and shatter it-"

Dexter's hand suddenly gripped Mandark's ankle, making him jump away, before he returned to the floor slowly, "Dexter, I'm so sorry- this is all my fault- I-I was just so obsessed, I wanted to win, I wanted to beat you… but this…" he swallowed, touching his hand, "Jeez, Dexter, I never wanted this to happen- I don't hate you, I just-"

Dexter only smiled at him, his voice forced and small, "We're friends, Mandark. You're my _only _friend. It's… it's okay."

"Dexter?!"

Dexter's back arched sharply, sliding against the steel, and his eyes widened with a small gasp of pain. His breath began to slow, and at last stopped, his eyes still, an unseeing stare at the sky through his broken windshield. Mandark stared in silent horror.

"No!" Mandark cried, "You can't die! Wake up! It was an accident- I'm sorry, already! Wake up!" Mandark reached forward, gripping him by the shoulders, "I'm the _bad guy_! Wake up!" His eyes welled with tears, burning as he screamed, "WAKE UP!" He collapsed onto Dexter's cold form, weeping, "You're my best friend, Dexter…!"

END.

_I know this seems like a drabble, but I honestly knew what I wanted in great detail, before I wrote this!_

_~Def_


End file.
